How to Be Really Healthy, No Matter Your Age

Hello Loves,

So often people set expectations and goals based on numbers. You have likely heard or said these things:

• It’s all downhill after 40
• I want to weigh “x” pounds
• This is how many calories I can eat today
• This is how much I need to exercise to loose weight
• This is a normal problem for someone my age

Our thoughts are very powerful because they frame our reality and expectations…and those things determine the actions we do or don’t take to change things.

I believe that:

• Symptoms aren’t merely annoying or inevitable—they are the way our body is trying to get our attention about something that needs attention.
• Illness isn’t random.
• Every health challenge is an opportunity to learn how to heal, balance, understand, and nurture our body back to health.
• That we can maintain excellent health through all ages and stages of life.
• All challenges, health related or otherwise, are here to grow us.

We have the choice whether to view our body in a superstitious way (ignoring meaningful cause and effect can be understood) or in a self responsible way (we can learn more about ourselves and how to re-balance).

Chronological age is related to our birthday but biological age is related to our habits. We can care for ourselves in ways that make our biological age 10-20 years younger or older than our chronological age.

Body weight is a far less important metric than body composition. Our percentage of lean and adipose tissue is the more telling statistic. And the amount of fat (therefore inflammation) carried in our abdomen is even more crucial to our degree of health. Our weight can remain the same yet we might shift from lighter (and inflammatory) fat cells to heavier (and metabolically helpful) muscle tissue.

500 calories of low glycemic calories act totally differently in our body than 500 calories from a fast food meal. The way the body responds to simple carbohydrates -vs- fats is also vastly different.

We are better served to study our blood work, our body composition, and our hormone balance. We can learn daily by noticing our energy levels, our urine ph, our sweat, our breath and our digestion….all of which are communicating valuable feedback about our body’s vitality.

Our wellbeing is the flowering of our level of attentiveness and responsiveness to our body. Our bodies are always trying to get our attention and let us know what is and isn’t working.

The secret to thriving is to listen and respond accordingly. May you deepen your appreciation for your body’s communications and become a responsive listener. Our body has so much to teach us about our Spirit, our mind, our emotions, and how all of those things are instrumental in regaining our balance. When we view our body’s “symptoms” as meaningful communication, we can then learn how to take action that shows “we get it”—and then we can take action from a place of love.